J. H. Prynne

[luka]

yeah all from white stones

 

[luka]

there's quite a lot of continuity in that book as you mention. the same words keep recurring and make you wonder what exactly they stand for.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I like this sun set one, you can imagine him sitting by the crackling fireside with classical music on the radio. It seems more human than the other stuff I've seen. Quite surprised actually.

 

[woops]

what do you make of the unexpected estranged blood @Benny B

 

[Benny Bunter]

what do you make of the unexpected estranged blood @Benny B

Well, I dunno. Something in him has changed during his fireside musings. He's taken out of the hearth then returned (like a piece of coal which he almost seems to become, or certainly identifies with) and the change he has undergone is 'unnoticed'. You've got the rhyme there with changed/estranged too which seems significant somehow

It seems like he was snapped out of his reverie, possibly by the music on the radio, and returns subtly changed somehow.

But who knows? It's pretty knotty.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Maybe what he's estranged from is that identification he has with the coal and the fire which sends him off on his fancy, but these are only fleeting moments, although they change us imperceptibly.

 

[woops]

it wouldn't be prynne if it didn't have at least one jarring/baffling moment like that

 

[luka]

i dont have the foggiest idea, i tend not to rack my brains over those things tbh.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Amber, birch tar and coal are formed out of dead plant matter, so there's that geological thing going on too. And it has a 'pulse' which links it the blood.

 

[Benny Bunter]

'Hearth' suggesting 'heart' and 'earth' seems to be tying it all together.
The other day I read that thing he wrote about Maximus where he was talking about the concept (sorry Luka) of home and return, so the homeliness of this poem with all the geological stuff is probably related to that.

 

[luka]

the lecture where he famously claims to have read all of Maximus in a single sitting the evening before the talk

 

[Benny Bunter]

It was this I read

Jeremy Prynne lectures on Maximus 1

charlesolson.org

 

[luka]

yeah theres only one maximus lecture (although as you can see from the title its in 2 parts)

 

[Benny Bunter]

the lecture where he famously claims to have read all of Maximus in a single sitting the evening before the talk

🤥

 

[Benny Bunter]

It's a good read. Couldn't follow all of it obviously cos I've only read a little bit of Maximus and he makes some quite large leaps in logic that maybe only make sense to him. But I don't think he's a bullshitter though.

 

[woops]

i dont have the foggiest idea, i tend not to rack my brains over those things tbh.

🤥

 

[Benny Bunter]

ive read every essay on him there is and most of the ones on the white stones talk about him trying to do something along the lines of understanding the body as part of the landscape, or the man as an extension/outgrowth of the land, or some sort of weird Olsonian thing along those lines

Seems relevant here

 

[luka]

getting very irritated and impatient with the white stones now. starting to read them quickly
and all these sanctimonious endings
'beauty is the trembling golden harp of desire'
thats not a real one but thats how they all sign off. what a fucking drip.

 

[luka]

I read 'a night square' recently and I enjoyed it, though Im not sure if I enjoyed because I enjoyed it or because I was excited that I approached understanding it. Reading Cinema 2 by Deleuze as well right now and running into the same quandary.

it's like edging. as long as you can sustain yourself on the plateau all well and good but there comes a point where you give way to frustration and impatience, like, what's the point, i don't get it, he's a dick, fuck him

 

[luka]

i was just saying to a friend of mine you can have too much of something. i remember going to an abstract expressionist exhibition
and you see one Pollock (for example) hung on the wall and it's very nice, energetic, but you see 40 of these things and it's just old
laundry hung on the line. you lose all respect for it.